Meet our Moments Illustrator: Patrick Seymour

It has been a tradition at CreativeMornings to work with an artist in our community to create an illustration for the monthly theme. February is all about Moments.

The illustration is everywhere — in 160+ chapters’ social media channels and at the events.

While the artwork speaks for itself, we wanted to get to know the artist on a personal level and introduce them to the creative community. We’re delighted to introduce you to…

Meet Patrick Seymour

Patrick is a French art director from Montréal, working in advertising for 12 years and more specially also in illustration for five years. He has worked with companies such as Y&R, Havas, Coca-Cola, Nike, Element Skateboard, Budweiser. He is currently at Ogilvy.

Photo credit: Renée Heppleston

How did you get into illustration work?

I developed my illustration skills as an art director in advertising. Sometimes the client’s budget were really low, and when you can’t afford a professional illustrator or a photographer, you need to be able to do anything on the spot. So I started to play in Adobe Illustrator with all the different tools to be more efficient.

How would you define ‘moments’? What does that mean to you?

Moments for me is to do the right thing one step at the time. That’s what I tried to express in the monthly illustration. Each moment is important and when you do the best that you can, the moment is finished—you check it and you move onto the next.

At what point in your life did you realize that illustration was your calling?

This is a fun question because I’m not an illustrator in my day job. This was at first, like I said, a more technical process to be better in Illustrator and Photoshop for my art direction work. Right now I do illustration for fun and to relax myself after an hard day at work, so it’s more a great hobby for me.

How has your work evolved over time and what were some influences that caused it?

I always wanted to do woodcut and the work of MC Escher, but my hands are too shaky to accomplish small details. So at first I tried to recreate this technique in Illustrator since I can control the shapes and the lines, making them as smooth as I want.

After that I realized the lines were fun to play with. You can do a lot of different styles depending on the size and the shape
of the line, so I made a lot of illustrations trying 3D effects with colors or transparency.

Right now I put more time in my art direction work than my illustration work and I only take on contracts that I want to do, like this one for CreativeMornings. I’m really glad and thankful to have that freedom.

What advice would you give to fellow illustrators?

My advice is for digital illustrators like me to practice, practice, practice. The more you will know your logicals, the more you will be free to do anything, faster, easier, and with more fun.

If you could open a door to anywhere, where would you go? Why?

I think it will be in England. I love the free museum, the British culture, and all the great source of inspiration. It’s an old country with history, and of course, you don’t find this in Canada.

Tell us something about yourself that we can’t find on Google.

I’m left-handed, haha. You will not find that on Google. Also all of my designs are made on computer with my mouse in my right hand. So I can sketch with the left and draw with the right at the same time.